Bolt of Blue
by UE
Summary: Leena angsts.


Beginning Notes: My second fic, only re-edited this time.  That doesn't mean it has stopped sucking, though.

Every time I see you falling

I get down on my knees and pray

I'm waiting for that final moment you

Say the words that I can't say

--_Bizarre Love Triangle _by Frente!

Bolt of Blue

               On some nights I sense that we are one, physically and otherwise, but tonight…tonight was not one of them.  I turn my head to look at your sleeping face.  Your breathing is deep, just a couple degrees shy of snoring.  Stray strands of your sea-green hair cover your closed eyelids, casting numerous shadows across your cheeks, so that it looks as if you're hidden away from me.  Usually, I would find it relaxing watching you like this – peaceful and comfortable and perfect.  But I know that somewhere in your peaceful, comfortable, perfect dreams, you are in a place far away.

               A place where I'm not, where I'll probably never be.

               I reach out to touch your face, but you grimace—as though in pain—at the contact and roll over, and all I'm left with is a view of your bare back.  I sigh and let the minutes pass.  Whole eternities are crammed into each one.  Time always moves slowly when you're alone.

               Suddenly, you start moaning.  No, it's more like whimpering.  They're not the moans of pleasure you used to caress me with during our nights together long ago; they're not strong and fiery, nor do they fill me with strength and fire.  You sound like a brown nightingale, whose chest is pierced by thorns, and again, I try to touch you, crawling towards you and encircling my arms around your waist from behind.  I think you're still sleeping, for your breathing rhythms haven't changed, but you stiffen under my embrace.  I softly say your name to the darkness, only to be answered by it.

               We stay like this for a long time and all the while, you're moaning intermittently.  Gently gliding my fingers across your chest, I stroke you carefully, so as not to wake you.  You feel so warm.  I move in closer, press my lips along your spine, and move from the bottom up.  The moans finally cease after I plant five kisses, but then I feel a shudder pass through your body.  I immediately stop.

               "What are you doing--"

               It's not even a question.  Sharply turning your head to look at me, you scarcely emerge from the shadows, and all I can see are the traces of sweat forming near the top of your creased forehead, where the roots of your hair meet the skin.  Your words, your voice, they all lack the warmth your body possesses and I'm trying to convince myself to attribute that to your being startled from your sleep.  Still, I wonder if the hurt is as obvious in my eyes as it is in my heart.

               "Are you okay, Gareas?"

               Even in the dark, your eyes try to avoid mine.

               "Yeah, I'm fine.  You scared me, that's all.  I'm fine.  Go to sleep."

               I give you my best smile (don't I always?), but I wonder if you even see it, if you even see me and how much I… 

               "Okay, Gareas.  Goodnight."

***

Tune is wrapped tightly in my arms, half-sobbing, half-suffocating into my shoulder, but I try to hold her even closer to myself.  She feels as fragile as her tears.

               Rioroute announces to everyone and no one that _he's _dead, saying it in disbelief.  And it's because he doesn't want to.

               All of the other repairers handle the news as well as anyone can under the given circumstances: Phil's face is noticeably pale and her eyes are wide with a horror that mirrors the sight of the shattered pieces of the Luhma-Klein; Kazuhi tries to mold herself in the usual semblance of her brother, but even from where I am standing, I can see the young girl's hands shaking uncontrollably.

               Rioroute says it again, believing it this time, choking on his own sorrow.

               And that was when your knees—and your heart—betray you; you fall onto the ground.  You're no longer crying, but your face is crumpled like piece of paper, as you pound your fists again and again and again into ground.  Everyone else is silent.  Tune looks away and clutches my shirt, her hot tears running down her face as fast as the blood is on your fists.  All the pain rushing into your hands must feel like nothing, because you continue beating them against the cold, hard floor.  Yu closes his eyes and turns his back so that he doesn't have to see you—but he can still hear you, and you make sure that he does, that the whole world can and will—as you howl _his_ name and curse your own, screaming that it should have been you…that it should have…been…you…

               As I watch you, my heart breaks with yours, but not for the same reasons.

***

               "Goodnight, Leena."

A wan smile slides easily into your face and you lean forward to kiss me on the mouth, but then you draw back and turn your body to the side, so that you can try to go back to sleep.  I turn away from you, as well.  

That night after the funeral, you had come into my room without warning and slammed me against the wall, making love to me more fiercely, more passionately than the sum of all our previous times together.  Your hands were unsympathetic, ripping off my clothes and breaking my skin, but in the lassitude of our love, you held onto me as though I were the only thing you had left in this wretched world and I took it all in, for I actually thought you were mine, too.  In that inexplicably sweet moment when we were entangled and throbbing in each other's heat, I actually believed that now that _he _was gone, you were truly mine.  Oh God, forgive me, but I did.  I did.  But now, as I look at your sleeping—peaceful, comfortable, perfect—form, I cannot even begin to comprehend how wrong I am.  

A single whisper from you shatters all my thoughts.

               "Ernest…"

               Lying here beside you, I've never felt more far away.

Ending Notes: The image of the nightingale pierced by thorns comes from the story _The Nightingale and the Rose _by Oscar Wilde.  The title of this fic comes from a line in _Bizarre Love Triangle_.  There are a million versions of this song, but I suggest y'all download the one by Frente!, close your eyes, and let it carry you.  It's simple but beautiful.


End file.
